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Add St. Louis County, Missouri to the growing list of Elections Boards around the country who have now rejected Diebold, Inc. voting machines in the last-minute scramble to select new election hardware, prior to the Jan. 1, 2006 Help America Vote Act deadline to have such "upgrades" paid for with Federal tax dollars.

The bad news for the once-great, now-disgraced Diebold, Inc. (stock symbol: DBD) of North Canton, Ohio, comes as the latest blow in a long string of disappointments for the company, which last week saw the resignation of its CEO, the filing of several Class Action Securities Fraud lawsuits, and the devasting revelation that their voting machines can be easily hacked, allowing the results of Diebold elections to be completely reversed.

The last minute decision came amid intense lobbying by both citizens' election integrity advocacy groups and paid Diebold lobbyists --- at least one of whom was reported to have inquired about both The BRAD BLOG itself and the financial background of the father of yours truly!

There are also growing concerns about the security of voting equipment sold by ES&S, as well, in light of various states and counties around the country selecting them, instead of Diebold, as the contractor to privatize their public elections.

The County's decision to go with ES&S, instead of Diebold, comes just days after the City of St. Louis (distinct from the county) decided unanimously to go with Diebold. The City's decision occurred even after Diebold's machines were exposed as completely insecure in a so-called "hack test" in Leon County, Florida that resulted in the tally of a test election being completely reversed. A few days later Volusia County, Florida decided against Diebold, and shortly thereafter the State of California "punted" the issue, for now, back to the Feds, stating there were "unresolved significant security concerns" with Diebold's voting machines. The California decision, though not yet definitive, is undoubtedly one of the biggest blows for Diebold, since it is regarded by the company as America's largest "voting market."

The City of St. Louis may come to regret their decision as much as they eventually came to regret allowing the County to split off from it, back in the days when the County was sparsely populated and seen as draining tax dollars from the City. Today, St. Louis County's population is over 1 million, while the City continues to stagnate at a population of just over 300 thousand.

According to reports from both grassroots organization Missourians for Honest Elections and Jo Mannies of The Post, information and concerns about about the latest failures of Diebold voting machines, brought to the County's Board of Election by citizens, was crucial to the BoE's decision. As reported by Mannies in a story on The Post website last night:

Board member Anita Yeckel acknowledged that the controversy surrounding one of the contenders, Diebold Election Systems, was a factor in her decision.

"There was a lot of publicity about Diebold that hadn't been resolved," she said.

In the version of the story which ran in today's paper, the following addition to the above was found:

She added that she personally thought Ohio-based Diebold was "a terrific company."

There was no explanation for that added quote and we have been unable to reach Mannies for comment today.

According to Virginia Harris, a volunteer with Missourians for Honest Elections, St. Louis county resident Harvey Friedman (father of this blogger) was instrumental, along with several others, in bringing the latest disturbing news about the Diebold company to the attention of the Board of Elections.

On a personal note; While my father has never shown a proclivity towards political activism in the past, to the knowledge of this exceedingly proud blogger, I couldn't be more impressed with his tenacious efforts to inform the St. Louis County BoE members of the many growing concerns about Diebold, and to hold their collective feet to the fire in the bargain. The tree, apparently, does not grow far from the fallen apple. Thank you, Dad. And congratulations for the positive effect of your good work in my old home town!

The activism of Friedman the Elder, and the reporting of The BRAD BLOG, apparently has not escaped the notice of at least one person, said to be a Diebold lobbyist present at the series of recent BoE hearings in St. Louis. After Mannies of The Post ran a short blog item highlighting both our hometown connection and our father --- whom she met and interviewed at the hearings --- Lou Hamilton, reportedly representing Diebold, was said to have "thanked" Mannies for "the outing of BRAD BLOG" (whatever that might mean) and to have asked her "Who is Brad's father? What does he do for a living?", according to a report of the incident.

Hamilton is apparently the CEO of "strategic communications consulting service" Hamilton & Company, and described in an article by Mannies as "a prominent Democratic consultant." More information on Hamilton and his company is available here. We have been unable to reach either Hamilton or Mannies for additional comment on the information reported above, which was emailed to us yesterday.

While attention to the many anti-democratic maneuvers of Diebold, whose former CEO Walden O'Dell infamously pledged his personal committment "to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes" to George W. Bush in a fundraising letter to Republicans prior to the 2004 election, has been increasingly well-publicized, ES&S has escaped the scrutiny of many Election Reform advocates.

The fact, however, is that ES&S' voting machines are not known to be any more secure than Diebold's, as reported in an eye-opening article yesterday by Wired News. In the report, adjunct computer science professor at the Florida Institute of Technology, Hugh Thompson, who also took part in the Leon County "hack test" last week, is concerned about the voting equipment being purchased from companies other than Diebold:

"Looking at these systems doesn't send off signals that ... if we just get rid of Diebold and go to another vendor we'll be safe," Thompson said. "We know the Diebold machines are vulnerable. As for ES&S, we don't know that they're bad but we don't know that they're (good) either."

Earlier this year, ES&S acquired distribution rights to the AutoMARK system, which has been described as far superior and far more secure than ES&S' own touch-screen and optical scan voting machines. As well, the AutoMARK system, which produces a paper ballot for every vote cast, is said to be accessible to disabled citizens in ways which ES&S and Diebold machines are not, according to a number of disabled citizen's advocacy groups. In Florida's Leon County, the Board of Elections has decided to contract with ES&S, with the intention of using the AutoMARK system once it becomes certified by the state.

St. Louis County's BoE has decided against the AutoMARK system, and instead will purchase 1,750 ES&S touch-screen machines for use in municipal races, along with 500 precinct-level optical-scan tabulators for use in Federal races, according to Harris, with whom we spoke by telephone earlier today. She suspects that ES&S is not dealing honestly with their newly acquired "partners" at AutoMARK, whom she contends ES&S is "defrauding" by over-pricing and under-representing their machines when dealing with potential clients on State and County elections boards.

"In my opinion, ES&S fraudulently priced the AutoMARK machines so high on their bid, that there was no way they could compete with ES&S's DRE [touch-screen] machines or anybody else's for that matter," she told us. Harris claims to have a copy of the bids submitted and hopes to share them with The BRAD BLOG soon.

The wrangling over which vendor to select in St. Louis County occurred shortly after several "closed door sessions" of the St. Louis County Board of Elections, who met privately with Voting Machine vendors and locked out the public and election integrity advocates. Those "closed door sessions" appear to be in violation of Missouri state law, and since then, The BRAD BLOG has learned, "Freedom of Information Act" (FOIA) requests have been filed with the County for the minutes of those closed door sessions. We will, as always, keep you up to date on details that may be revealed by those FOIA requests if and when the County complies with them.

It IS odd --- to put it mildly --- that a company would prefer to lose millions of dollars in income rather than comply with state law and submit to inspection.

In another thread here, somebody wrote that the Las Vegas gambling establshment openly submits to inspection as a condition of business in that state. Why wouldn't Diebold? Have they given any plausible explanation that actually stand up to logic?

No one is asking them to post their so-called "proprietary secrets" on the web or in the newspaper, are they? My understanding was that there would be a select group of experts, sworn to honor trade secrets (or something like that) who would examine the code. Have they given any explanation as to why that isn't good enough?

Hey, what the hell is wrong with paper ballots? We use them here in Oregon and, to the best of my knowledge, we have pretty honest elections.
Oh, I get it, it's just too hard to get away with rigging elections with them.

Ah, it appears Lou Hamilton, Diebold's "purported representative" is yet just another Republican in sheep's clothing. The kind of clueless Democrat that dances with Republicans in the wrecking of this country. That ilk just can't conceive that there are some people who are actually altruistic and rise to a higher civic-minded and patriotic level that demands truth, and the notion of fair and honest elections where every vote is accurately cast and accurately counted. Life is more than selling out and making money for dubious enterprises--it's about the common good. Cheers to your father, and, cheers to you Brad! You've been a beacon during this dismal year and digging up the truth. Your work is outstanding.

Can anyone tell me--Does HAVA require electronic voting machines for the disabled at each polling place?
We have a small county--only 300 voters, on average, at each of 42 polling places. Yet, our county is purchasing ES&S optical scanners with AutoMark which we can't afford.
The county clerk & the local board of elections say we CAN'T use paper ballots & hand counting anymore because HAVA requires the electronic machines for the disabled, & they are so expensive that we need to use them for all voters since we can't afford to use 2 different systems.
I called the Illinois state board of elections & couldn't get a straight answer. I called the commission that oversees HAVA (the same commission that the GAO report complained about) & they said the same as the county clerk.
Does anyone have the scoop?

When in doubt, call on Ron Popeil. Ronco can design a "set it and forget it" system that will accurately tabulate votes, all while roasting a turkey and steaming veggies. Yumm-ay! Comes with a ginsu too i think.

I found the decision by the City of St.Louis to sign with Deibold kind of humorous. As a 45-year inhabitant of St. Louis, I'd say the city government isn't exactly reknowned for honesty or intelligence, so perhaps it was a 'birds of a feather' kind of decision. Yet, a quandary exists: how on earth is Diebold going to deliver St.Louis to the Republicans?? I mean, is there an elected Republican ANYWHERE in the city government??

We here in St. Louis County thank you and your father for your commitment to fair and balanced voting. We want nothing like the fiasco that surrounded the 2000 vote in St. Louis City, which probably cost John Ashcroft his seat in the Senate (and made him available to serve as Attorney General).

We want our votes counted fairly so we can keep electing conservatives like Jim Talent and Todd Akin.

Greaqt article, as always. But it wasn't until I was well into the post that I knew whether you were talking about the St. Louis county in Missouri or in Minnesota. And that was only becasue of the mention of the newspaper and St. Louis the city. Many states have counties, and even towns, with the same name. Can you include the state when you mention locales so there's no ambiguity?

Electronic voting machines for the disabled are NOT a requirement of HAVA. Disinformation has been spread widely on this subject, whether intentionally or not.

The EAC has confirmed in writing that HAVA does NOT require any machinery at all. They go so far to say that paper ballots are acceptable, when used in conjuction with a method that makes the ballot-marking accessible to the disabled. Votersunite.org have information about such a device that is HAVA compliant without requiring the use of any electronic voting machines at all.

The AutoMARK is a compromise, in that it uses electronics but it only marks a paper ballot--it doesn't count them. (So the counting can be done by hand to avoid the risks of using optical scan machines which can be easily hacked.)

If you go onto BBV and use the Advanced Search feature you should find some links to the EAC text where they formally clarified what HAVA does, and does not, require. Or if someone else reading this can supply the link that would be most helpful.

We need people like you to take the EAC text to the state and county Boards of Elections, together with the info from VotersUnite, so that election officials are informed about HAVA's requirements and the very broad range of ways they can be met.

By the way, most of the electronic equipment that is being bought, supposedly because of HAVA, is actually not HAVA compliant! (More about that is at BBV.)

For Grennels: My "Spirit of St. Louis" remark was merely a reference to the name of Lindy's plane, not to his politics.

For the record, he was not a right-winger in the modern sense of the word. An isolationist, yes, but no Nazi. Lindbergh was very naive to allow himself to be duped by the Third Reich into praising their air machine in 1936, and his free associations with Alexis Carrel and Henry Ford makes it easy to view him as an anti-Semite. I don't believe he was. Anne's 1940 book, "The Wave of the Future," is responsible for much of the anti-Semite talk, but she was motivated more by pacifism than politics in writing it.

It's easy to forget how strong American sentiment against "bailing out Europe again" was in the 1930s.
The Lindberghs' positions only seem radical using hindsight. In "The Lindbergh Syndrome" I point out that F.D.R. let Chamberlain handle Munich alone in 1938. How risky would it have been to send a few American diplomats, so that Hitler would know we were at least aware of things? F.D.R. sat it out, knowing how isolationistic the American mood was at the time, yet history has recorded him as a hero of World War II while Chamberlain is remembered as the great "appeaser." Very unfair, I say.

Both Lindberghs were pacifists at heart. In "Of Flight and Life" (1948) Charles wrote, "The bombing of Hiroshima was as close to real science as the Inquisition was to the Sermon on the Mount."
He opposed the Vietnam War, and became a rabid envrionmentalist late in his life. I promise you, Grennels, if Lindbergh were alive today, he'd be no friend of the neo-cons or of George W. Bush.

JustMatt - My apologies for leaving the word "Missouri" out errantly, I'll go back and fix that. I usually name the state, but this time, likely overlooked it since I'm a former St. Louisan and probably took it for granted

Charlene - Hope you received the answers to you questions from the other commenters above! I'll try to drop you an email just to make sure, however.

John McCullough - Yes, as I've tried to point out, ES&S is certainly not off the hook. But we only have resources at BRAD BLOG to focus laser-like on one step at a time. There are many stones in this wall, and I'm aware of all of them, and intend to focus on each as best I can given the lack of manpower/time/money, etc. available here. We're fighting a financial goliath in Diebold and the others, so not able to do as much, all at the same time, as I might otherwise like.

"Just get rid of the voting machines" sounds great to me. Canada doesn't use them, and it counts all the votes within a couple of days. Election fraud isn't a problem there.

It might take a couple of weeks here to count paper ballots, but the Electoral College doesn't meet until December. Fraud is still possible with paper ballots, as Rep. Jerrold Nadler pointed out at the Conyers hearing in D.C. on 11/8/04. But at least the corporations would be out of the mix.

That might be the sticky wicket. MacPherson's change of heart in California might reflect just how politically powerful voting machine companies are. Our best hopes in this area are Debra Bowen and the class-action suits against Diebold, which will assert the power of civil law over political influence.

There are quite a few postings at BBV about cost and timing of counting paper ballots in US elections. It's not an obstacle. The time, personnel and cost factors are easily quantified, so you hire the number of people you need to count depending on the number of elections and issues on the ballot. Do the counting in the polling place. A few hours should be all that's needed.

The procedures for doing this exist. It is not rocket science. It would cost considerably less than any of the electronic options.

It's the electronic machines that are giving us weeks without election results, dodgy election results, and results about which we can never be confident.

Hand-counted paper ballots would be faster, cheaper and far more reliable.

The question is, do legislators from either main party actually want elections that reliably express the will of the voters? So far the answer seems to be No.

Yes and No. The Mythbreakers is one of the most important documents re: HAVA. And IIRC in an appendix they have info about devices that can help disabled voters fill out a standard paper ballot, thus satisfying HAVA.

I was hoping to find the link for Charlene where the EAC explicitly stated that paper ballots can be HAVA compliant (e.g. no electronics are required by HAVA). This, together with the info in Mythbreakers, is what Charlene needs to show her local election officials.

"These wars in Europe are not wars in which our civilization is defending itself against some Asiatic intruder... This is not a question of banding together to defend the white race against foreign invasion." Building on his belief that "racial strength is vital," Lindbergh published an article in Reader's Digest stating, "That our civilization depends on a Western wall of race and arms which can hold back... the infiltration of inferior blood."

"These wars in Europe are not wars in which our civilization is defending itself against some Asiatic intruder... This is not a question of banding together to defend the white race against foreign invasion." Building on his belief that "racial strength is vital," Lindbergh published an article in Reader's Digest stating, "That our civilization depends on a Western wall of race and arms which can hold back... the infiltration of inferior blood."